The proposed job description details more than a dozen responsibilities. Essentially, Harshman said, the coordinator/coach will work with teachers to help create learning environments conducive to all students. Students who have experienced trauma or adversity should especially benefit.

This can include students who are homeless, hungry or abused, Harshman said.

“Those children show up at school,” she said, “and their brains are not primed for learning.”

Strategies to help students will be informed by educational neuroscience research, Harshman said. The hired candidate must complete the Butler University educational neuroscience certificate program, at no cost to the candidate.

About a year long, the Butler program is designed for educators, social workers and counselors who work with children and adolescents experiencing adversity and trauma, according to its website.

It notes participants become acquainted with the “literature of educational neuroscience, trauma and the brain, and brain development as it relates to behaviors, relationships, and academic acquisition.”

The Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction ought to be an education professional for the same reason that the Superintendent of the Indiana State Police ought to be, and is, a law enforcement officer...

...for the same reason that Indiana's Attorney General ought to be, and is, an attorney...

...for the same reason that the Commissioner of Indiana's State Department of Health ought to be, and is, a medical professional.

Education is a specialized a field. The State Department of Education is, and in the future ought to be, run by an education professional.

As the nationwide wave of teacher strikes keeps gaining momentum, an Oklahoma bill would make it illegal for teachers to walk out and protest.

But House Bill 2214 doesn't stop there -- it would also permanently revoke certifications of teachers who break the rule, preventing them from ever teaching in the state again.
The bill's author, state Rep. Todd Russ, said the main point is to make sure kids don't suffer a disruption in their education.

Oklahoma lawmakers have filed a host of bills that seek to crack down on the methods educators employed to stage a statewide walkout and Capitol protest last spring.

Proposed measures range from criminal penalties for disrupting the Legislature to the mandatory loss of pay and teacher certification for those who strike or shut down schools to resolve differences with state leaders.

At its peak, the two-week teacher walkout in April had more than 500,000 students out of school — about two-thirds of the state’s student population.

Teacher salaries weren't the most important thing behind the strike in Los Angeles. The teachers were offered a 6% raise before the strike...and after the strike they settled for a 6% raise. The learning conditions for the students was uppermost in teachers' minds, not dollars in their pockets as the media and public education foes would like you to believe.

The tentative deal includes what amounts to a 6% raise for teachers — with a 3% raise for the last school year and a 3% raise for this school year.

But teachers also lost about 3% of their salary by being on strike for six days, according to the school district. Other employees got the same 6% raise without having to makes such a sacrifice. The district had offered 6% to teachers before they went on strike.

Striking teachers were sincere, though, when they said the walkout was always about more than salary. The broader concerns they voiced — about overcrowded classrooms and schools without nurses on hand to help when a student got hurt or fell ill — had a lot to do with why the public responded so warmly and cheered them on, bringing food to the lines and even bringing their children to march alongside the strikers.

It should be a no-brainer for Indiana lawmakers to rein in abuses by low-performing virtual charter schools. But there are few sure things in the General Assembly.

As Chalkbeat Indiana reported, virtual charter schools have spent heavily in recent years to lobby legislators. They have also contributed generously to political campaigns. They will be heard.

Regulation is needed because virtual charter schools, which provide all or most of their instruction online, have some of the worst academic performance in the state. Most have consistently received Fs in the state’s school grading system, and their test scores and graduation rates tend to be low.

About 62 percent of Indiana high school students – or nearly 45,000 – earned college credit through dual-credit and AP courses in 2016 compared with 47 percent in 2012, the agency reported.

“Our most recent data indicate that high school students are not only earning more early college credit than ever, but the credit they earn in high school is actually leading to higher success rates and cost savings for students and the state,” Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education Teresa Lubbers said in a statement.

Dual-credit courses are classes that let students earn high school and college credits simultaneously. They can be taught at high schools or colleges.

With the Indiana General Assembly back in session, one state lawmaker says he still intends to introduce legislation that would block public dollars from going to private schools that engage in discriminatory hiring practices.

The proposal by Rep. Dan Forestal, D-Indianapolis, comes in the wake of discrimination charges lobbed at Roncalli High School, a Catholic school overseen by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. Forestal said he wants to see strings put on the state’s voucher program, which uses public dollars to offset to cost of tuition at Roncalli and other participating K-12 private schools.

I’ve written before about Indiana’s voucher program, which is by far the largest in the country, and the damage it is inflicting. The funds supporting the program would otherwise go to Indiana’s chronically under-funded public schools; research confirms that the private schools participating in the voucher program have failed to improve the academic performance of the children attending them...

...Terry Spradlin, executive director of the Indiana School Boards Association, reminded House Education Committee members Jan. 9 that schools have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to property tax caps in the past few years. “We're lagging behind on tuition support since 2010 by about four percentage points. Had you kept up with inflation ... we would be about $573 million ahead of where we are right now,” Spradlin told Rep. Jim Lucas when the Seymour Republican asked whether the school board group wanted more money or more flexibility. “Indiana has fallen 10 slots behind (other states) on per-pupil expenditures since 2006. We now rank 34th. So you're doing a pretty good job of dedicating 52 percent of our state resources to K-12, but the reality is because we're not using local levies any longer, we're slipping behind.”HB 1003 shifts blame for the shortfall in education funding – and, subsequently, to lagging teacher pay – to local school officials, who have had no control over general fund revenue since the state took over that responsibility in a 2008 swap for property tax cuts.

*This post has been updated to include one additional article listed at the top

Friday, January 25, 2019

Mandates to teach K-12 students about democracy would end 18 months from now unless a summer study committee decides to keep them, according to a bill discussed yesterday in the House Education Committee.

Will you speak up to keep mandates in place saying K-12 students will be taught about citizenship and democracy?

Yesterday in House Bill 1400, the mandate to teach our K-12 students about citizenship in our democracy was proposed to expire on July 1, 2020, unless the General Assembly takes action to save it in a summer study committee. Many other mandates are given the same treatment. Your voice is needed this week to get this set of civic mandates removed from the long list of programs to be ended if House Bill 1400 is passed.

At a time when our democracy is under attack from several directions, legislators need to hear that we don’t need to review whether our students should study the Constitution of the United States or take a course in American History. This is a set of civic mandates (IC 20-30-5) that we should all support.

House Bill 1400 is a massive bill. It proposes a review of nearly all mandates in our K-12 schools. It has great support because many mandates are unpopular. In testimony yesterday, our long-standing civic mandates in Indiana Code 20-30-5 were barely mentioned. They are one of forty-one sections of Indiana law that this bill would sunset effective July 1, 2020 unless a summer study committee in 2019 recommends otherwise.

Forty-one sections of law for one interim study committee to review!

Tell legislators that you are sure they can remove IC 20-30-5 from this review, the section that mandates that our students learn about citizenship, displaying the flag, and the pledge of allegiance.

Take Action This Week

The good news here is that the sponsors of the bill, Representative Cook and Representative Behning, did not take a vote on the bill and announced they would amend the bill before taking a vote on it next week. They acknowledged that there are many changes to be made.

Contact them to say they should delete the citizenship mandates in IC 20-30-5 (page 11, line 3) from this bill.

An Aggressive Approach to Ending Mandates

House Bill 1400 puts nearly every mandate in Indiana schools on the chopping block.

It has a lot of support because many mandates have intruded on the time of our teachers. The Indiana Department of Education last summer produced a list of 18 laws that mandate that teachers be trained in areas such as CPR and bullying every year. This bill is an effort to reduce the demands lawmakers have placed on teachers.

Yet the attorney for IDOE giving testimony yesterday on HB 1400 had “grave concerns” about several provisions, saying that Section 7 threatens receiving $271 million in federal funds and that Section 14 is “counter to our Constitution.”

The Senate Education Committee yesterday took a more moderate approach to the “18 trainings” memo. They had a hearing on SB 508, which changes “annual” training in five areas (e.g. bullying and human trafficking) to training every five years. SB 508 received strong support in testimony and will be voted on next Wednesday by the committee.

What are the Mandates to Teach Students about Citizenship and Democracy in IC 20-30-5?

Since the 1950’s, mandates have guided our public schools in teaching students about being good citizens in our democracy. These mandates include:

the pledge of allegiance and the display of the flag (20-30-5-0.5)

the study of the Indiana Constitution and the US Constitution (20-30-5-1)

the non-partisan study of general elections (20-30-5-4)

a required two-semester course in American History (20-30-5-4)

morals instruction (20-30-5-5)

good citizenship instruction (20-30-5-6)

Ending these mandates on July 1, 2020 unless an interim study committee saves them would put our democracy at risk.

It would be comparable to a plan to sunset the Bill of Rights unless the US Congress votes to reinstate them. That would be a huge risk to the structure of our democracy.

Ask Legislators to Delete 20-30-5 From the List of Mandates Scheduled for Expiration on July 1, 2020

Contact the members of the House Education Committee who will vote on an amended bill next week:

Then share your concern with your own Representative and your own Senator.

You may want to look up the forty other laws listed to expire on pages 9-11 of HB 1400, listed under “School Deregulation”. You may object to other parts of this plan. Current language of the bill includes ending on July 1, 2020 mandates for high ability education (IC 20-36), bullying prevention training (IC 20-26-5-34.2), CPR training (IC 20-28-5-3) and many others that may be near and dear to you.

It’s breathtaking.

Good luck in your efforts! Thank you for your active support of public education in Indiana!

“Vic’s Statehouse Notes” and ICPE received one of three Excellence in Media Awards presented by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an organization of over 85,000 women educators in seventeen countries. The award was presented on July 30, 2014 during the Delta Kappa Gamma International Convention held in Indianapolis. Thank you Delta Kappa Gamma!ICPE has worked since 2011 to promote public education in the Statehouse and oppose the privatization of schools. We need your membership to help support the ICPE lobbying efforts. As of July 1st, the start of our new membership year, it is time for all ICPE members to renew their membership.

Our lobbyist Joel Hand represented ICPE extremely well during the 2018 session. We need your memberships and your support to continue his work. We welcome additional members and additional donations. We need your help and the help of your colleagues who support public education! Please pass the word!

Go to www.icpe2011.com for membership and renewal information and for full information on ICPE efforts on behalf of public education. Thanks!

Some readers have asked about my background in Indiana public schools. Thanks for asking! Here is a brief bio:

I am a lifelong Hoosier and began teaching in 1969. I served as a social studies teacher, curriculum developer, state research and evaluation consultant, state social studies consultant, district social studies supervisor, assistant principal, principal, educational association staff member, and adjunct university professor. I worked for Garrett-Keyser-Butler Schools, the Indiana University Social Studies Development Center, the Indiana Department of Education, the Indianapolis Public Schools, IUPUI, and the Indiana Urban Schools Association, from which I retired as Associate Director in 2009. I hold three degrees: B.A. in Ed., Ball State University, 1969; M.S. in Ed., Indiana University, 1972; and Ed.D., Indiana University, 1977, along with a Teacher’s Life License and a Superintendent’s License, 1998. In 2013 I was honored to receive a Distinguished Alumni Award from the IU School of Education, and in 2014 I was honored to be named to the Teacher Education Hall of Fame by the Association for Teacher Education – Indiana. In April, I was honored to receive the 2018 Friend of Education Award from the Indiana State Teachers Association.

According to the ACLU, under the terms of the settlement, EACS has agreed to allow Leo Pride Alliance to change its name to Leo GSA (Gay Straight Alliance), and to provide the organization with all meeting, communication and fundraising opportunities provided to other groups.

EACS denied the allegations but agreed to allow the group to change its name to Leo GSA, according to a statement from the ACLU. A judge on Friday dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it can't be filed again.

“The student led Gay Straight Alliance group at Leo High School must be treated in the same manner that all other student groups are treated,” the ACLU said in a news release announcing the settlement. “We are pleased that East Allen County Schools agreed to the equal treatment of the group, relieving these students of any unwarranted burdens.”

...Republican state Sen. Dennis Kruse’s bill, introduced last Thursday, seeks to place a poster reading “In God We Trust” in every public and charter school classroom in Indiana...

...The bill would also allow public schools to teach creationism and offer a survey course on world religions. Curriculum for the survey course must be “neutral, objective and balanced” and not “promote acceptance of any particular religion,” according to the legislation, but it only lists the Bible as a specific text to be studied.

Karen Pence, the wife of Vice President Pence and the nation’s second lady, is now teaching art at a local Christian elementary school that reserves the right to reject LGBTQ students and employees, according to documents on its website.

TEACHER PAY

The big talk in the legislature and from the governor this past week was over teacher pay. Four articles had a high rate of engagement.

Gov. Eric Holcomb dropped a surprise Tuesday in his State of the State address, and it was a good one. He called for tapping Indiana’s budget surplus to add $70 million to funding for K-12 schools each of the next two years.

That’s a little less than a 1 percent increase, but it’s something. And it’s on top of a 2-percent-per-year school funding hike in Holcomb’s budget proposal.

It was a surprise because the Republicans who control both the House and Senate had signaled that Indiana’s $1.8 billion surplus was off the table in this budget-writing session. If the GOP governor says it’s not off the table, then it’s not.

Indiana plans to free up $140 million over two years for schools with the goal of increasing teacher pay, Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb pledged Tuesday night in his State of the State address.

The state will tap into its $2 billion in reserves to pay down a pension liability for schools, Holcomb said, reducing schools’ expenses so more money could go to educators.

“Just like paying off your mortgage frees up money in your personal budget, this state investment will save all local schools $140 million over the biennium with continued savings thereafter,” Holcomb said.

Fort Wayne Community Schools leaders had a few choice words Monday – “ridiculous,” “asinine,” “cruel” – about proposed legislation that would publicly shame districts transferring more than 15 percent of state funding to operations rather than classroom expenditures.

“It's cruel, almost, because you're painting the picture that all of us have been irresponsible,” FWCS Superintendent Wendy Robinson said at Monday's board meeting. “... With what we have, we are constantly trying to find other resources.”

House Bill 1003 is an attempt by state Republicans to increase teacher pay without adding new state dollars. Instead, legislators want schools to use more existing dollars on salaries.

“We do need to pay teachers more,” board President Julie Hollingsworth said. “It's obvious in Indiana that teacher pay is falling behind, so the question is how to do it. We have other academic staff in our buildings that serve students. They deserve a raise, too.”

On Thursday, the governor presented his budget requests to the State Budget Committee. State Senator Eddie Melton (D-Gary) noticed the governor’s omission in asking for additional money to fund teacher salary increases.

“Governor Holcomb neglected to request necessary funding to provide teachers across Indiana with a pay raise. The entire Republican supermajority is boasting they support teacher pay, but the proof is in the pudding -- why aren’t they proving their support by adequately funding education to make teacher salary increases a reality? Without new money, there is no way to ensure that teachers will actually receive a raise.

The Mind Trust has been influential in charterizing Indianapolis Public Schools. It's not surprising that Chalkbeat would highlight them given that many of Chalkbeat's financial supporters are part of the economic backbone of the privatization movement. The entire list of supporters can be found here. Some of the more obvious school privatizers among Chalkbeat's supporters are...

A nonprofit that is one of the chief backers of Indianapolis Public Schools’ partnerships with charter managers announced Friday it received $24 million in new grants.

The largest grant given to The Mind Trust, $18 million from The City Fund, will help fund startup grants and training for charter and innovation school leaders. The money will also help pay for ongoing training of school staff and community engagement.

The study offers some hard evidence that the post-election months were a more fraught time in many schools — backing up the stories of individual teachers and students. But the effects were not spread evenly: In communities favoring Trump, reports of bullying were 18 percent higher than in communities that voted for Hillary Clinton, the study found. Reports of peers being teased or put down because of their race or ethnicity were 9 percent higher in those places.

1. Quit spending over $100 million on standardized testing...
2. Quit spending over $10 million on IREAD-3 testing...
3. Quit spending over $70 million on student vouchers for students who have never attended a public school...

Spending goes both ways. If legislators want school districts to spend differently, then they too should be willing to spend differently. The aforementioned ideas are only three ideas in which they can do so. I am hopeful they will listen to their own advice.

Sen. Kruse has introduced SB 373 concerning flags and god in public schools. He wants to mandate that a framed picture of a U.S. flag, a state flag, and the words “in God we Trust” be placed in every public school library and classroom. The entire display must be at least 14 x 17 inches with the motto being at least 4×15 and each flag being 5×5.

The bill also amends the current legislation permitting schools to offer a survey of religion class by specifying that the survey may include the study of the Bible as one of the permissible documents that may be studied in the survey. It does not specify any of the holy texts of other religions as eligible for study (although, under current law, the Bible and all of those other documents are already eligible for study.) The bill also states that a school corporation may mandate the teaching of creation science as one of the “various theories concerning the origin of life.”

Indiana legislators want to give educators a raise, but they don’t want to pay for it. Their plan: Shame school districts into cutting spending elsewhere so they can target dollars to teachers.

Their tool for doing this is House Bill 1003, unveiled this week by House Republicans and presented Wednesday to the House Education Committee. It would “strongly encourage” districts to spend at least 85 percent of their state funds on instruction; it would subject them to public scrutiny if they don’t.

Indiana StatehouseThe assumption behind the bill is that schools have plenty of money, but they waste it on bloated administrative expenses and frills. But the data don’t support that claim.

Paperwork, pens and Kelley Automotive Group hats awaited five high school students Tuesday at Tom Kelley Buick GMC, one of two dealerships where they will soon regularly work.

The Fort Wayne Community Schools Career Academy students – Nolan McKuras, Enrique Trujillo, Jacob Maggart, Keagan Snaufer and Jose Cortez – successfully completed an extensive vetting process for a paid service technician internship. They will be paired with an experienced automotive service technician.

The Governor wants to speed up a law that would allow him to replace the State Superintendent of Public Instruction with an appointee who is not required to have experience as a K-12 teacher or a K-12 administrator.

Democracy took a hit in the 2017 session. The Indiana General Assembly passed a flawed law taking away the power of voters to choose the K-12 leader and leaving a loophole to allow appointment of someone without K-12 experience.

In the historic final vote on April 18, 2017, the power of voters to elect the State Superintendent of Public Instruction was ended after 166 years. The power taken away from voters was given to the Governor starting in 2025.

Now the Governor and legislative leaders want to take power away from voters sooner, starting in 2021. Identical bills to do this have been filed in the House (HB 1005) and the Senate (SB 275).

This is a bad idea...

If you are concerned about who leads our K-12 school system in this unprecedented makeover of K-12 school leadership in Indiana, contact your legislators to say you oppose HB 1005 and SB 275. Tell them two things...

Indiana’s Republican leaders want to give state teachers a raise — but they don’t necessarily want to give schools and districts more money to do it.

Schools would have to cut costs in other areas to push more dollars into teacher salaries, under part of House Republicans’ education plan for 2019. The goal for school districts would be to use 85 percent or more of their state funding for instruction-related costs, such as teacher salaries.

House Speaker Brian Bosma set low expectations for the Indiana General Assembly when he suggested the state's financial needs already exceed its available revenue.

“It's going to be an extraordinarily difficult budget year,” Bosma said last month. “I told my team that everyone will try to sell whatever it is they want as the budget solution. ... People want to do this, they want to do that – it's the worst way to make policy.”

Granted, there's no silver budget bullet to be found in a tax increase, legalized sports gambling or any other legislation sold as remedy for the revenue shortfall. But there's much lawmakers can do to improve Hoosiers' economic prospects and well-being. Some involve investments in areas too long neglected or shortchanged; some require no money at all.

School reform has taken a toll on children starting in kindergarten (even preschool). There’s little doubt that children are being forced to learn to read earlier than ever before. The reading gap likely reflects the developmental differences found in children when they are forced to read too soon.

Why are schools doing this? Forcing kindergarteners to read before they’re ready means that many will fail.

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

The Governor wants to speed up a law that would allow him to replace the State Superintendent of Public Instruction with an appointee who is not required to have experience as a K-12 teacher or a K-12 administrator.

Democracy took a hit in the 2017 session. The Indiana General Assembly passed a flawed law taking away the power of voters to choose the K-12 leader and leaving a loophole to allow appointment of someone without K-12 experience.

In the historic final vote on April 18, 2017, the power of voters to elect the State Superintendent of Public Instruction was ended after 166 years. The power taken away from voters was given to the Governor starting in 2025.

Now the Governor and legislative leaders want to take power away from voters sooner, starting in 2021. Identical bills to do this have been filed in the House (HB 1005) and the Senate (SB 275).

This is a bad idea for two reasons:

1) It ends even earlier the power given to voters in the Indiana Constitution. In our democracy, Indiana voters should retain the power to elect the State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

2) The language of the law removing this power from voters is badly flawed. Loopholes and deceptive wording make it possible for the Governor to appoint someone with no experience in K-12 teaching or K-12 administration.

Contact your legislators to oppose moving this date up and to oppose allowing anyone without K-12 experience to lead our K-12 school system. Tell them that you oppose HB 1005 and SB 275.

The Law Removing a Constitutional Pillar in 2025 Has Flawed Language and Should Not Be Accelerated

Since 1851, voters have been able to elect a State Superintendent who had an independent mandate from the electorate as the education leader in Indiana. Now, more power has been handed to the Governor.

With this vote, democracy in Indiana was diminished.

Voters who want to influence education policy in Indiana had better focus on the race for Governor. If the privatization of public education in Indiana is to be reversed, voters will need to find a candidate for Governor who will be a champion for public education. Voters will no longer be able send a message to change the direction of education in Indiana by voting for a State Superintendent as they did in 2012.

Illusory Language in the 2017 Law Means K-12 Experience is Not Required for the Governor’s Appointee

Under the current law passed in 2017, the Governor will appoint a Secretary of Education starting in 2025. The illusory language of the law detailed below leaves the impression that K-12 experience is required but when the words are examined closely, K-12 is not mentioned. Track the details below:

The 2017 Law to End the Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction (House Bill 1005): Resurrected from a Decisive Defeat

House Bill 1005, rising controversially from a decisive defeat to be passed and signed, took a nearly unprecedented path to reach the final vote in 2017:

House Bill 1005 passed the House 68-29.

SB 179, identical to HB 1005, failed in the Senate 23-26. Many thought defeating the bill would end the proposal for this session.

Senate rules say that when a bill is defeated “that exact language or substantially similar language shall be considered decisively defeated and shall not be considered again during the session.”

In a Senate Rules Committee meeting in which Democrats pointedly argued that the rules say “shall not be considered again during the session,” the Republican leadership claimed that they were making the bill “substantially different.” Republicans had the votes to win the argument.

The “substantial differences” were found in three changes:

1) The date of the first appointment by the Governor was changed from 2021 to 2025.

2) A requirement of two years residency in Indiana was reinstated.

3) Qualifications were stated which give the illusion that experience in K-12 education is required to be appointed. In fact, K-12 experience is not mandated, a conclusion confirmed in a statement on the floor of the Senate by the bill’s sponsor Senator Buck while speaking against Senator Breaux’s proposed amendment which would have mandated K-12 experience: “While we are trying to consider the availability to the Governor of somebody that would be the administrator of our department of ed, I hope we realize that someone with the depth of experience of executive leadership and in higher ed such as former Governor Mitch Daniels would be excluded from that category . I think it gives the Governor a great deal of latitude in looking to somebody that has executive experience in the field of education.” (Senator Buck during second reading amendments, March 30, 2017)

Read carefully the new slippery language on qualifications:

“(2) has demonstrated personal and professional leadership success, preferably in the administration of public education;” “(3) possesses an earned advanced degree , preferably in education or educational administration, awarded from a regionally or nationally accredited college or university; and”“(4) either:

(A) at the time of taking office is licensed or otherwise employed as a teacher, principal, or superintendent;
(B) has held a license as a teacher, superintendent, or principal, or any combination of these licenses, for at least five (5) years at any time before taking office; or
(C) has a total of at least five (5) years of work experience as any of the following, or any combination of the following, before taking office:

(i) Teacher.
(ii) Superintendent.
(iii) Principal.
(iv) Executive in the field of education.

The word “preferably” has no meaning under the law. It can obviously be ignored. It is surprising that such a word is used in the bill. Using “preferably” means that it is not necessary to appoint a public education administrator to be State Superintendent. Similarly it is not necessary to appoint someone with a degree in education or educational administration.

This “preferably” language and the phrase “Executive in the field of education” open the door to appointing a business leader with executive experience in an education field such as testing or technology. Superintendents in Indiana are no longer required to have a superintendent’s license.

Another concern is whether it was written for a higher education official to be appointed. No reference to K-12 experience or degrees is included. It is not clear that those who wrote this legislation wanted a leader with K-12 experience.

After the Senate Rules Committee added these amendments, the full Senate passed the historic bill 28-20.

At this point, Speaker Bosma as bill sponsor had a choice. He could take the bill to a conference committee to restore the House’s bill language or he could ask the House to concur with the Senate language. After several days, he decided to opt for a concurrence vote in the House which passed 66-31 on April 18th.

Bi-Partisan Opposition and Partisan Support

Despite discussion of past Democratic leaders wanting this change, the final votes in both the House (66-31)and the Senate (28-20) on HB 1005 showed bi-partisan opposition and, except for one vote, partisan support.

In the House, the yes votes were cast by 65 Republicans and one Democrat, Representative Goodin.

In the House, the no votes were cast by 28 Democrats and 3 Republicans, Representatives Judy, Nisly and Pressel.

In the Senate, all 28 yes votes were cast by Republicans.

In the Senate, the no votes were cast by all 9 Democrats and 11 Republicans, Senators Becker, Bohacek, Crane, Glick, Grooms, Head, Kenley, Koch, Kruse, Leising and Tomes.

Contact Your Legislators

If you are concerned about who leads our K-12 school system in this unprecedented makeover of K-12 school leadership in Indiana, contact your legislators to say you oppose HB 1005 and SB 275. Tell them two things:

The case is clear: Appointing Indiana’s K-12 leader has undermined democracy and the damage should not be accelerated. The Governor and the Republican leadership have suppressed future disagreement between the Governor and the State Superintendent by ending the independent mandate from voters held by the State Superintendent since 1851. Since Governors are elected on many issues and education is a minor issue in gubernatorial campaigns, voters have lost their direct power to correct the course of education when they are motivated to do so, as they were in the 2012 election. Removing public dissent on education in this manner aligns with Milton Friedman’s plan to gradually deconstruct public education and fund a marketplace of private schools with public tax dollars. This puts us on a slippery slope to a weaker and weaker democracy where the power of the ballot box is diminished.

The language of the law must be changed to require K-12 experience before anyone is appointed to lead Indiana’s K-12 school system. The loophole language “Executive in the field of education” allowing leaders with only higher education experience or business experience related to education must be replaced with clear language requiring experience in K-12 teaching or K-12 administration.

“Vic’s Statehouse Notes” and ICPE received one of three Excellence in Media Awards presented by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an organization of over 85,000 women educators in seventeen countries. The award was presented on July 30, 2014 during the Delta Kappa Gamma International Convention held in Indianapolis. Thank you Delta Kappa Gamma!ICPE has worked since 2011 to promote public education in the Statehouse and oppose the privatization of schools. We need your membership to help support the ICPE lobbying efforts. As of July 1st, the start of our new membership year, it is time for all ICPE members to renew their membership.

Our lobbyist Joel Hand represented ICPE extremely well during the 2018 session. We need your memberships and your support to continue his work. We welcome additional members and additional donations. We need your help and the help of your colleagues who support public education! Please pass the word!

Go to www.icpe2011.com for membership and renewal information and for full information on ICPE efforts on behalf of public education. Thanks!

Some readers have asked about my background in Indiana public schools. Thanks for asking! Here is a brief bio:

I am a lifelong Hoosier and began teaching in 1969. I served as a social studies teacher, curriculum developer, state research and evaluation consultant, state social studies consultant, district social studies supervisor, assistant principal, principal, educational association staff member, and adjunct university professor. I worked for Garrett-Keyser-Butler Schools, the Indiana University Social Studies Development Center, the Indiana Department of Education, the Indianapolis Public Schools, IUPUI, and the Indiana Urban Schools Association, from which I retired as Associate Director in 2009. I hold three degrees: B.A. in Ed., Ball State University, 1969; M.S. in Ed., Indiana University, 1972; and Ed.D., Indiana University, 1977, along with a Teacher’s Life License and a Superintendent’s License, 1998. In 2013 I was honored to receive a Distinguished Alumni Award from the IU School of Education, and in 2014 I was honored to be named to the Teacher Education Hall of Fame by the Association for Teacher Education – Indiana. In April, I was honored to receive the 2018 Friend of Education Award from the Indiana State Teachers Association.

Monday, January 7, 2019

We haven't posted In Case You Missed It since December 17 so there are quite a few articles listed below. Articles appear as they appeared in social media; The newest are at the top. Thank you for your interest and support of public education.

Here are links to the articles receiving the most attention in NEIFPE's social media over the last few weeks. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

An Adams County school is getting recognition for proposing a way to solve an issue many people face.

Winter roads can get slick with freezing rain, ice and snow. That is why South Adams Middle School is proposing a GPS tracking device to find safe routes to travel by connecting to GPS trackers on vehicles like snowplows.

That was the school’s proposal in Samsung’s Solve for Tomorrow Contest. This contest encourages teachers and students to solve issues in their community with science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills.

In his first major speech as Leader of an Indiana House Democratic Caucus that he called the most diverse in state history, State Rep. Phil GiaQuinta (D-Fort Wayne) called today for lawmakers to take immediate action on a variety of issues to improve the quality of life for Hoosiers.

That action should include passage of legislation to improve teacher pay, expand pre-K throughout the state, enact a hate crimes law, protect the health care of people with pre-existing medical conditions, make it easier for Hoosiers to vote, and provide a nonpartisan drawing of legislative and congressional districts.

In 2011, the Republican-majority General Assembly with Mitch Daniels as governor passed a sweeping set of laws affecting K-12 education. New laws created the private school voucher program and expanded charter school opportunities. The rhetoric and talking points used to sell these programs echoed that being used across the country; much of it was focused on bad schools and bad teachers.

If the state's newly released high school graduation rate report serves just one purpose, it should be as impetus for a crackdown on virtual charter schools, including one which more than doubled in size after graduating only 22 of its 1,009 seniors last spring.

Senate Bill 183 would serve as a check on Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy, which posted a graduation rate of 2.18 percent, compared with a state average of 88.1 percent...

On Friday, December 21, as everybody took off for the holidays, the Education and Justice Departments rescinded Obama-era school discipline guidance designed to address vast racial disparities in school discipline practices. Particularly important was the purpose of the guidance: reducing overuse of suspension and expulsion, encouraging schools to handle discipline policies in ways that keep students in school, and developing restorative discipline programs to create a safe school climate. Officials in the Trump administration, including Betsy DeVos and her Federal Commission on School Safety, continue to endorse punitive discipline.

Los Angeles is about to try to prove that class size doesn’t matter. The district, on orders from investment banker Austin Beutner, has hired about 400 substitutes to fill in for thousands of teachers who are preparing to strike on January 10. Let’s see: 400 teachers for 600,000 students. Those are very large classes!

...the Waltons are not merely funding advocates and research and media. They are actively intervening and interfering into the democratic process (as Putin did in 2016 in our presidential election), sinking the hopes of home-grown candidates who can’t match their funding. Putin did it by stealth and social media, the Waltons do their dirty work in the open, using the sheer force of money.

When Arizona teachers walked out on strike, it led to a legislative move to increase education funding by $400 million. But it also led to an expectation that some legislators would seek some vengeance on the uppity educators.

Enter Rep. Mark Finchem (R) with House Bill 2002, a proposal to stifle teachers when it comes to discussing any kind of politics in the classroom called the "Teacher Code of Ethics."

John Merrow spent 41 years reporting on education for NPR and PBS “Newshour,” long enough to develop a clear-eyed view of what’s right and wrong with America’s schools. He argues that our obsession with “reform” is an addiction that’s harming students and teachers.

The Phoenix Union High School District disciplined Neal because he had posted in his classroom a sign supporting #InvestInEd, which was an initiative for an education tax to raise new money for public schools that was initially placed on November’s ballot but removed by the state Supreme Court before the election. Teachers are not supposed to advocate for any political cause, though Neal said that wasn’t his intent, the Arizona Republic reported.

...It’s worth remembering that #InvestInEd was an initiative to raise more money for public schools...

When Fort Wayne Community Schools educator and amateur radio operator Jon Luckey first set out to share his longtime hobby with students, he failed miserably, perhaps because he was a first-year teacher.

Now in his 21st year, he has found success with the Kekionga Middle School Amateur Radio Club, an extracurricular activity with a core group of six students, mostly sixth-graders.

Even with the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs, which provide free and reduced-price meals to eligible students, children can still accrue debt over unpaid food. Those ineligible for free meals sometimes don't have money in their account or on hand.

The Orleans Parish School Board closed the last public school in New Orleans, in a meeting room filled with protesting parents, students and alumni of McDonough 35. New Orleans is now the first city in the United States without a public school. The board disregarded the protesters.

...Ferebee is under renewed scrutiny because of his inaction in a sexual abuse case of major proportions in February 2016. Some of Ferebee’s underlings were fired for the mishandling of the case, but Ferebee won a bonus from the school board, which was thrilled by his willingness to privatize large parts of the school district.

The new retirement option from the Indiana State Teachers’ Retirement Fund (TRF) received approval from the Internal Revenue Service. The plan allows new hires to select a DC-only plan with a shorter vesting period of five years.

The plan, while optional and voluntary for each new hire, reduces benefits for retirees.

The new contract includes raises ranging from 3 to 9 percent, with most eligible teachers’ salaries going up by at least $2,586 per year. The contract covers 2018-19, and teachers will get retroactive pay increases going back to July.

The result? A generation of young children who are stressed beyond capacity. Ask a school nurse about students reporting anxiety, depression, cutting themselves, eating disorders, thoughts of suicide, attempts of suicide. Ask about the numbers of hospitalizations for mental health issues. The answer will stun you. The American Academy of Pediatrics shared the shocking news that children’s admissions to hospitals for suicidal thoughts or for “serious self harm” more than doubled from 2008 to 2015 — with more than 10 percent of patients between 5 and 11 years old.

School voucher programs and charter schools practice discrimination in enrollment and hiring because they can, according to a recent policy brief from the National Education Policy Center. Federal and state laws permit discrimination in private schools that receive public funding. And charter schools are held to looser standards than traditional public schools when it comes to selecting students.

Sunday, January 6, 2019

In January members of education and religious communities gathered in January to hear Rev. Charlie Johnson discuss the success of Pastors for Texas Children. NEIFPE teamed up with Rev. Johnson to encourage local religious groups to join together to support public education.

Rev. Charlie Johnson of Pastors for Texas Children

Throughout the year NEIFPE members joined with others to attend and celebrate community events.

Below NEIFPE members attended the service at Plymouth Congregational Church where Karen Francisco, pictured above in pink, was honored with the Amistad Peace and Justice Award.

...and joined NPE in honoring NEIFPE co-founder Phyllis Bush. NPE established a new award for community activism and named it after Phyllis, who is also a Board Member for NPE. The first annual award went to SOS Arizona.

NEIFPE ended the year with a wedding celebration. On December 11, NEIFPE co-founders Phyllis Bush and Donna Roof were married in Fort Wayne. With short notice, a court room was filled with friends and former students to celebrate this joyous occasion.

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NEIFPE Mission Statement

We are citizens, teachers, administrators, and parents united by our support for public education and by concerns for its future. Recent federal and state reform measures have created an over-emphasis on testing and have turned over public education to private interests. We believe that these reforms threaten the well-being of our children and jeopardize their futures. Our goal is to inform ourselves and to start community discussion about the impact of these measures on our public schools and, more importantly, on our children.

NEIFPE Book Reviews

It is the summer of 1869, and trains, crews, and family are traveling together, riding America’s brand-new transcontinental railroad. These pages come alive with the details of the trip and the sounds, speed, and strength of the mighty locomotives; the work that keeps them moving; and the thrill of travel from plains to mountain to ocean.

It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!, is the just the right person to step in and save him.

Jonathan Kozol's most personally insightful and revealing work to date takes the form of encouraging letters to Francesca, a young classroom teacher, offering advice, personal stories, and a shared sense of outrage at the inadequacies of America's educational system.

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